I went to stop at a few different job sites since I would be in El Segundo. Its always nice to see our Civil Engineer grading work in progress. Today did not disappoint.

I got a call from the contractor on this particular job asking if they could use a smaller trench drain. We generally oversize these trench drain as we will get asked to use a smaller width drain. The ultimate goal is that we don’t want small drains that can have water flow over and flood the garage. I am glad anytime we get asked about this since some larger drains are designed to handle a certain amount of water. Not in this case. But most of the time something smaller is installed. 4″ or 6″ works for us in this case. I just don’t want to see a 2″ drain that will clog and do nothing very quickly. Leaves, dirt, grass clippings, just about anything will clog a smaller trench drain and end up acting not as a drain. I wonder if there is a Civil Engineer term for this?

To start from the front of the property is where the grading design begins. A new driveway apron will be constructed along with removing the existing apron. From there we added a 3′ wide minimum ADA path. The path partially impedes onto the property. We normally put this in to give a clear path for access.

Not much to see from the front porch picture. The high point of the property is at the front against the sidewalk. So this porch sits below street level and drains towards the sideyard to a pump system.

The other half of the front yard will drain towards the trench drain. Most of that yard is made up of the driveway. The steeper driveway side is about at an 8% grade. Nothing too bad and the stormwater should flow nicely around the house.

The sideyard is set at the minimum setback requirement of 5′. At the front there will be an area drain that acts as a drain for the front lawn and also a cleanout for the trench drain which will make its turn down the sideyard on the way to the pump system in the back yard.

And we finally make it to the back yard. Nothing to see here, yet. The pile of dirt is covering the area for the pump pit installation. This pump system was another question we got asked. Isn’t this too big? We originally start off a plan check with using the Los Angeles City method for sizing the pump. Some cities are now requiring the Los Angeles County method. El Segundo is asking for that. The County method requires a larger sized pump and if the pump was to fail we also need to install a backup. So a duplex pump system for a larger amount of stormwater it is.

I can’t wait to get back out to the site once the house has been built. Isn’t being a Civil Engineer fun?

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